Wind-Swept

Oh, the wind, the wind... She loved how it felt, arching across her shoulders and down her back, twisting cool fingers into her hair, smoothing worries off of her brow and sliding a frisky caress up her ankle.

If she jumped, would the wind catch her? Would it be strong enough to float her to the Earth, leaving her splashing playfully in the waters far below? Would it feel like flying? Behind closed eyes, she imagined it, gliding through the air, hair blown back, scarf slipping free and flitting behind her, winding through the air like an eel.

As she imagined the laughter slipping free from her, it did so, the sound ringing out over the falls and their pounding, brutal waters. She was knee-deep in pushy, eager flows that whispered in burbling chirps for her to jump, jump, jump! She could imagine it, as vivid as reality, behind eyelids flickering and fluttering; she could feel herself melting and molding into the waters and down, down she would go -

"Hey! Hey, don't jump!" Some stranger's voice rang out behind her, shattering the gleaming images that danced in her mind.

She opened her eyes and looked down. The waterfall roared below her, and the white foam reminded her of an open maw. Goodness, she was high!

"Hey!" The sound was accompanied by sloshing now. She lowered her arms from their akimbo at her sides. The whispering waters receded to mere currents, and the yearning dissolved like footprints in sand. Slowly turning, she peered at the stranger who was quickly slogging closer.

He was unremarkable at first glance - peasant's clothing on a peasant's body, spray making his hair cling to his head in a wormy mop. His face was screwed up in a grimace as he struggled to meet her where she stood, at the tip top edge of a waterfall. He had quite a ways to go.

"What are you doing?" She called out, head tilted to the side.

The more she watched him, the more details sparkled and gleamed on him. She noticed that he was strong - the clothing, wet from his travel into danger, clung to corded muscles. His hair, though sopping wet, shimmered with color in the sun like a raven's wing. He had markings on his face that she did not understand but they fascinated her. The clothing, too, was no mere peasant's clothing. She liked how many pockets it had. She could tell. The ones past the stranger's knees were bloated and floating from the water's wild attempts to drag them down.

"I'm - " He stopped, blinking to look at her face. She was now grinning broadly. "I was... trying to help you?"

She snickered. At the sound, he scowled, but that just made her laugh even more. Her wild grin spread, and she raised her hands to contain the expression on her face. Her odd confidence wavered but for a moment when he cocked his head at her revealed hands.

Where five human fingers would have been, there were three, almost birdlike talons, dark-tipped and sharp. They extended from rough hide, like oiled leather that covered her wrists and faded into pale freckled skin at her elbows.

She dropped her hands back to her sides, nervously twisting the claws into her clothing. Her rough spun tunic was torn short past her waist and cinched with a leather belt, but the sleeves were shorn at the elbows as if left unfinished. Her trousers were obviously cut for a man, and she very obviously didn't care.

The Stranger stood knee-deep in flowing river-water, staring at her with annoyance bordering on bemusement. He let out an exasperated sigh and pushed sopping hair from his eyes. She giggled when she noticed that his teeth were sharp, and his eyes were not human. This was good - Humans made her nervous. Because of what she was, of course.

"You... don't need help. Do you." He crossed his arms.

She took a great breath and barked another laugh. He just looked to funny, standing there! Delighted by the new face, she decided she should speak with them. So, she hopped in place to spin and face him. Her foot slipped and she wobbled on the other, throwing her arms out like wings, nervous energy crackling at her fingertips, literally, and as her heart thudded into her throat, and her smile twisted dreamily into the image of her falling, falling, falling -

The Stranger caught her hand and pulled her off of the edge. Somehow he had made it however far to snatch her from a potentially catastrophic fall. She blinked, snapped out of her reverie by foreign strength, and the first thing she noticed was that his hair curled a bit around his face, and one strand was stuck in the fine jet hairs angled at the tip of his chin. "Oh!"

He smirked at the expression on her face - no doubt perplexed more then it was frightened.

She bit her bottom lip and looked up at him from under her lashes, cheeks pink. "...Well, maybe a little help?"

He helped her back to shore, sopping wet and grumbling as she giggled through 'eeps' and 'oops'. She was not themost graceful of creatures, and these stones were slick. Once they made it back to the rocky bank, she rung out the bottom of her shirt. WHen she glanced over, she saw him deflating the water-filled pockets one by one. She tittered, one talon on her lips in delight.

"So. Who are YOU, then?" He asked.

She tightened the scarf around her head, tongue pressed between her teeth and poking out ever-so-slightly as she focused on the knot. Talons were better for taking knots apart, not making them.

"Me?"

He rolled his eyes, a half smirk still sparkling with river water on his face. "No, the waterfall."

"That's the Forever-Fall." She nodded.

"I meant you. YOU. What is YOUR name?"

Her grin returned, and she bowed at the waist. "Delighted to meet you strange-stranger! You may call me the wind!"

"I'm not calling you that." Expression flat, one eyebrow raised.

She groaned, face turned into a pout for about two seconds, before her mood swung again and she shrugged gaily.

"Then you may call me Neria."

Awake

He opened his eyes.

A muddled confusion overcame him; gravity was ephemeral, vision was a black canvas, his body was pinpricks of discomfort. Had he opened his eyes? It looked the same when he blinked. Maybe now they were actually closed? He exercised this over and over until he noticed a difference.

A crack. There was a thin, white crack just at the very bottom of his sight. He wondered if he could touch it? He  began the exploration of that thing called 'movement.' He had hands, and fingers, and elbows which he kept knocking. He realized his knees, too, were awkward and incredibly in the way.

He couldn't move very much at all. Something was in the way. And the more he thought about the restrictions, the more uneasy he became.

What if this is it? What if this is all I get to do, everything I see is darkness and a smear of light, what if I never see my own hands or face or legs, what if, what if, what if....

The more these thoughts raced over his mind, the more he banged and thudded in his cubicle, and the more he did, the louder he became, and the more furious he banged and pounded and clawed at his encasement. Until -

Until the whole front side of whatever he lay in exploded outward, showering him with bits of dried splintery wood. There was momentum that came with the outstretched arms, balled up fists at the ends of them, crashing through his prison. It pulled him upwards, along with a long, sucking breath inhaled through dusty lungs.

He frantically brushed at his face and his chest and arms, shaking with the unknown rush of new life.

Sort of.

The light outside of his old grave was dim - twilight, full moon, stars lighting the open air. He blinked slowly, though felt no need to keep his eyes safe from the dry winds that tugged at his clothing. A moment of terrified and curious reflection overcame him, as if he was speaking to himself from far away.

I am fucked. But I have no idea why. And who the hell am I to BE fucked, anyway? No really, who am I? I know things - pointless useful things, like language, and up and down and breathing and eating and math and shoe size and that I like hats - but I have no idea who I am. No idea. 

He looked down at his hands. He knew he was a he. He glanced around. He made sure he was a he after seeing that there was no one else around. Then he felt silly. He had no idea why he should feel silly. He felt like his world was spinning on an awkward axis, throwing common knowledge at him intermingled with the blank, empty void of where HE used to be.

He let himself flop back down into his coffin.

It was a coffin.

He immediately sat back up, pulling himself clumsily out of said coffin, and spilling out onto the floor which was a lot farther away than he thought it was. He ended up face down on hard, smooth stone, and surrounded by the scraping of dried leaves blowing across the tile. There was a door open behind him. Thick pillars hid the rest of the world except for this one little room.

It took him a minute to work his legs right. And when he finally did get to his feet, he started to dust himself off and tidy himself up to distract himself from the thought that he couldn't feel how cold it was, or that falling almost four feet onto his face didn't even hurt, or that he had punched the lid off of a coffin to escape it. 

"No, you stop that. Stop freaking out." His voice came without obstacle, as if coming from a breathing, bleeding, salivating being. There was no gust of dust, cough, or black ooze, no feral growl or snarl instead of words, just... his voice.

That was ok. He could deal with that. And though he did not feel the need to breathe (which unnerved him a great deal,) he took the time to take a nice, deep, soothing breath.

"Ok. Ok. You aren't dead. You aren't really dead. You're just... you're just sort of dead. Half dead? Ugh." He shook his head. He ran his hands through his tawny hair. It was not white and dead and falling out. His fingernails weren't three feet long and cracked. His skin felt like it was all there on his face. He had eyelids....

Exasperated, he turned back to the coffin. He walked around it slowly, looking for some sort of plaque or something. There was nothing. It was a black coffin, elevated on a pedestal at the center of a pillared mausoleum in the middle of frickin' no where, and he was alone, with no memories of how he got there.

There was something inside the coffin though. When he plucked it out, it made him smile. He spun the fedora between his hands and in the same fluid motion he placed it rakishly upon his head, flicking the front brim of the dashing accessory.

"Whelp. Nothin' for it, 'spose. I'm sure it'll come back to me." His smile faltered for a fraction before he turned with comical resolution to the open door. "Forget it. It's fine. This is fine." He passed through the door and into the new night, and though he had no idea what strange, deserted suburban area he had emerged from, he did discover something.

Grafiti. All over the outside of this mausoleum. He read it, after taking a moment to decipher the font, and when he figured it out, he couldn't help himself. Doubled over, arms around his ribs, he laughed, sucking in air he didn't need just so he could pretend he was alive. He dashed pretend tears from the corners of his eyes and nodded. Among a many-layered war of obscenities and arguments, done in bright swirling colors read:

You Don't Know JACK

"You know what? Neither do I." He tipped his hat at the crypt, turned on his heel and meandered down the street. The first person he met would get a firm handshake and the following introduction.

"Hey there. Nice to meet ya. I'm Jack."

Escape!

The manacles dropped to the floor; click, clatter, clang. The loss of them hurt, physically ached in his bones, like he had been growing around them this whole time. The skin around his wrists was red and raw, scar upon scar upon newly worn flesh. It was a wonder, a beautiful moment in time, unbelievable.

Though his blood pounded in his pointed ears, and though the riotous noise in the other room ebbed and surged like waves on a cliffside, and though he knew he had to go, he stared. He stared at the lack of those manacles for longer then he should have. It's almost like I can breathe again, He thought, knowing he had to run, but being unable to look away.

There was a crash, a loud one, from the other room. It rocked him out of his revelation. He pocketed the key in his pants and cast his eyes about the room. He had nothing but the clothes he wore as possessions, a necklace bound to him from his father, and the key in his pocket.

His scant quarters were barren, save for the now discarded manacles and his pallet. His door was half shrouded by a thick curtain and nothing else. His masters did not expect him to leave. He wouldn't have been able to before, the spellwork on the shackles making it impossible to go anywhere but where he was told to go.

He could taste his heartbeat as he approached the curtain. Each footfall felt heavier now, weighed down by terror and doubt. Is this some trick? Was the key a trap? Was this whole thing some elaborate charade? Would they be standing there, past that doorway?

Then, in a fleeting moment, he was past the curtain, as if it had never mattered before. No one waited, lurking with cruel smiles. With that border having fallen around him, the rest crumbled and he was running. He knew the way out - he knew all the ways out, every passage, every door every window. A Minor torment, to know how to escape but being unable to. He'd endured worse, could endure far worse if he was caught. As the noise receded behind him, he ran faster. He ducked around corners, hid behind statuary and shadows to avoid being spotted.

And then he was free. Out the door with the two lion heads, down the hall, and over the threshold. Not only free of the keep and it's ruthless overlord, but free of the Hellscape, free of the whole realm! The shimmering tingle of the portal washed over his skin as he emerged, whole and unscathed, in a whole new world.

Giddy, ludicrous laughter hissed past chapped lips. His vision clouded, hands on knees, panting for breath in the twilight. Twilight! His knees gave out entirely, and he let himself fall into the tall grass. The moon was overhead, and it was full of light. He pushed hair out of his face, roping it over his horns. Bruises on his face still stung, and his wrists burned, but the air was so clean and clear!

He held his hands up to look at them. He had six pewter rings to his name, each useless and empty enchantments he could now fill, the bindings upon him gone at last.

Tools do only what they are told. Slaves do only as they are commanded. You are both, and as such my property. Your father has no use for a half-breed whelp. There is no place for you among your mother's whimpering kinsmen. Therefore, you are from nothing, and to nothing you will return.

His master's - former master's - voice echoed down the vast chambers of his mind. He ran his hands over his face, deep breaths in and out to soothe the panicked hysteria that his laughter had become.

Who am I? He thought. I had a name. I know I did.... He blinked, gazing once again up at the moon, a single long ago memory floating to the surface of his tumultuous mind. A woman's face, a human woman with brown hair and green eyes and a smile, a smile for him. She said something with love in her voice before the memory quietly drifted off.

"I am Zephyrius."